Location Kiryat Shmona, Israel Attack type Shooting spree | Date 11 April 1974 Non-fatal injuries 15 Israelis | |
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Deaths 18 Israelis, including 8 children (+ 3 attackers) Perpetrators 3 Palestinian assailants. PFLP-GC claimed responsibility. | ||
The Kiryat Shmona massacre was an attack by three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command on civilians in the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on 11 April 1974. Eighteen people were killed, half of them children, and 16 were wounded.
Contents
The attack
On 11 April 1974, three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command crossed the Israeli border from Lebanon. First, they entered the Janusz Korczak middle school, but it was the Passover holiday and the school was unoccupied. They then decided to enter another building nearby. They killed many of that building's residents. The terrorists then blew themselves up as Israeli soldiers stormed the building.
Aftermath
More attacks on northern Israel followed by Palestinian terrorists, including the Ma'alot massacre the same year, the Savoy Hotel Attack and Kfar Yuval hostage crisis in 1975, and multiple airplane hijacking acts, the most notable being Entebbe Operation in 1976. Following the bloody attack on an Israeli bus on March 1978, Israel launched its first large-scale invasion into Lebanon to eradicate Palestinian bases.